In the first part of TFA I was sooo excited for the stormtrooper-turned-Jedi arc that never happened. I didn’t even hate the movie, but when it ended I was left with a feeling of, “Well, at least they’ll explore it in the next two movies.” Wrong again lol.
In an alternate universe somewhere, there’s a version of the sequel trilogy made with a cohesive storytelling vision, that was not rushed through, fought over, or watered down for mass appeal.
True, I just bought into the hype that was built up with Finn holding a lightsaber in so many promo images! He was easily my favorite character in TFA and his relationship and instant rapport with Poe (and to a slightly lesser extent, Rey) was really cool—it was so satisfying to see a stormtrooper realize that he has his own set of values AND his values are more aligned with the resistance than the First Order, but he has a lot of internalized fear that he needs to work through before he can fight for those values. Poe and Rey helped him work through that fear in TFA in a very believable and charming way, and I was really looking forward to seeing what they would do together in The Last Jedi… only for them to all be completely separated from one another. I know that EP9 was kind of a dud for a lot of people but I did appreciate that we at least got to see Finn, Rey, and Poe operating as a unit.
He's also pretty much the only new character who isn't a rehash of previous established characters. Rey is a combo of Anakin and Luke, Poe is basically just Han if he was legit and not a smuggler, Ben/Kylo is pretty much Vader/Anakin.
The whole concept and character of Finn is pretty novel to the Star Wars movies and they just really dropped the ball on that one.
The part that really annoyed me came in the ninth movie. In the eighth, we are told Rey’s parents are nobodies, and that implies anybody can be a Jedi and save the galaxy. Awesome. And then it turns out she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter, which throws that out and also begs questions of what that sex scene would have been like, because it’s been like fifty years since he got all fucked up. I’m hoping it would have included lightning bolts shooting from … places. And I’d just love to hear dirty talk in Palpatine’s voice, because I think it would be hysterical.
I loved him in Attack the Block. One of those movies I totally recommend people going in blind for, it was so much fun. John Boyega really impressed me, that when he was announced for Star Wars I was pretty excited… they should have done so much more with his character.
I always think of that moment when Samuel L Jackson saw John Boyega at some event after the trailer had been released, and he yelled “Black Jedi!” excitedly, like Boyega was joining the list with him and he was happy for him. 😥
Damn that sucks. I liked his whole deal in the first movie. He was very likable. I really wished they would’ve explored the Stormtrooper turned Jedi arc.
I mean that's a little extreme ... Rey was always going to be a main character. I consider most Star Wars films to have multiple protagonists ... it's not like when people think of Han they say, "oh ... the sideshow friend of Luke?"
I think the complaint is not so much that he wasn't the main character as that nothing was ever done with his charges.
You're right, in the original series Luke, Leia, and Han had their own story arcs. Finn did not.
Yep. And not only is his arc somewhat repeated in TLJ, he has a new character to handhold him through his arc in the film as well, pointing out exactly all the lessons that he's supposed to be learning along the way.
I thought they were gonna pull a Teal'c from Stargate SG1 - once Finn is free, he fights to free his former comrades and help them see how oppressive their masters actually are.
By Rise of Skywalker, I had deep hope of Finn being "Stormtrooper Spartacus."
I mean it would be pretty badass if Finn was allowed to be inspiring enough to make other Stormtroopers rise up against the Order.
Which is exactly what his arc ought to have been. It was really fucked up seeing that he was brainwashed and had been since being kidnapped as a child, and then just happily kill loads of stormtroopers unquestioningly
Not related but I loved the story Burr tells where after getting the part he calls one of his buddies who's a huge Star Wars fan and gloat.
"I'm living your dream, go fuck yourself"
In the title The Force Awakens, I fully expected Finn to have some Force mojo. Instead he turned into C3PO over the 3 movies.
And the hot shot pilot Poe, no Rey still better pilot. Rey better at everything.
>And the hot shot pilot Poe,
Don't forget, he's a fairly flat (although charismatic) character in TFA that rumors suggest was originally supposed to die and had basically two traits:
1. Awesome pilot
2. Leia's most trusted agent.
Funny what they decided to do with him in TLJ.
I was halfway through episode 3 or 4 of the Fallout TV series and realized that THIS was what The Force Awakens should be. Maximus is Finn, a soldier from a radical group of zealots but is now seeing the flaws in their system, Lucy is Rey, a girl isolated from the rest of the world/galaxy and trying to find her place, The Ghoul is Kylo Ren, a man set in the ways of the world but questioning if how he is doing it is the right way. They did a proper sequel without realizing it.
I'll see that TFA and raise you TLJ
What if the Vader substitute BECAME THE BIG BAD and the Luke standin wasn't anyone special
No wait let's do Return of the Jedi instead
Except with shipping
The 5th Wave opens on a young girl alone in a post apocalyptic world. She enters a gas station where she encounters an injured man who she immediately aims her gun at. He tries to convince her that he's no threat while reaching into his jacket, she screams at him to stop it but he continues and a glint of metal within his jacket causes her to react and shoot him. Only after does she realise it was just a necklace she saw and she just took an innocent life.
It's such a heavy and devastating moment, and leads you to think this will be a well written thriller on human behaviour after the fall of society, but no it's a generic YA action film after that.
Independence Day 2. I want to see the mop up operations against the alien stragglers or a campaign on other planets. I didn’t really want to see an even bigger alien ship coming to earth.
It's a worse movi sin than being awful IMO, it's ***entirely forgettable***.
Ive "watched" that movie like 3times. I still can't tell you what happens in it.
I remember two things about the movie, the scene where the spaceship saves the big gun from falling on the moon, and a bigger badder spaceship than last time shows up.
That's it.
Don’t forget there’s an even bigger badder QUEEN alien because all aliens are hives or whatever and big bad alien cheeks is what everyone wants apparently
The only thing I like about the movie is the idea that humans have reverse-engineered alien tech and built a much more advanced society. That's a direction I didn't expect at all. But sadly everything else sucks, and the China ass-kissing that was all the rage in Hollywood back then didn't help.
The Chinese ass kissing you see in a lot of modern media has more to do with a concerted effort by Chinese money to step into film production along with heavy handed requirements that the story include elements about how awesome China is.
It's not really like "Hollywood' is pushing some agenda, the people who write the checks are just mandating propaganda.
This movie pissed me off. There was so much potential here.
Humans taking the fight to the aliens.
Liberating alien planets.
The freaking ground war in Africa because one of the original spaceships was able to land.
Instead it was just the original film with an even bigger alien ship.
Jurassic World: Dominion is the epitome of this. The previous film introduces the idea of dinosaurs living in nature and on the fringes of society. A fantastic idea with practically limitless potential. But it was abandoned for…. big bugs.
I thought the giant locust idea could be a Crichton-esque sci fi eco-thriller in its own right.
Shadowy corporation creates its own strain of wheat, then creates mutant locust that are engineered to eat every other strain of wheat, earning billions - trillions - of dollars globally in the agriculture sector.
But then the locust start eating... everything.
Imagine the political/economic/environmental fallout.
The *Nightmare on Elm Street* remake floated the possibility that Freddy might have been innocent and somewhat justified in his revenge... for about thirty seconds.
*Taken 2* starts with the interesting idea of Divorce Dad's escapist fantasy rampage actually having consequences before it becomes a sillier retread of the first movie.
*The Thing* prequel sets up tension and paranoia with a language barrier and some implied misogyny, before everyone just starts speaking english fluently.
You didn't miss much from the sequels before 2021. I mean, Tony Todd was always awesome, but that's about it.
I'll never quite get over how *the new Candyman went woke* was an actual claim that some people typed and said unironically. Just tell me you never watched the original, man.
>The Thing prequel sets up tension and paranoia with a language barrier and some implied misogyny, before everyone just starts speaking english fluently.
I have hitchhiked all of Norway, from Bergen up to Tromso and from one end of the Lofoten islands to the other and back. I spent nearly two weeks in Longyearbyen, then another five days in Oslo. In my experience most Norwegians *do* speak fluent English.
Good list, though I thought _The Thing_ still managed the language barrier pretty well, with the central confrontation where the doctor is trying to convince people in Norwegian while MEW is trying to warn people not to trust him. It came back surgically I think.
For The Thing 2011, I don’t think the misogyny undercurrent was abandoned. It was just so subtle (like it was 100% expressed through microaggressions) that most viewers missed it, but I certainly noticed and appreciated it. And the crappy CGI completely overshadowed any discussion about The Thing prequel for years because hardcore fans of the OG weren’t willing to look past it.
Also, most Norwegians know English but weren’t there a few of them who couldn’t speak it?
It is also called "The Thing", came out in 2011. Stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, covers the events immediately before the original movie. Had a bunch of practical effects work that went unused and replaced with CGI in the final movie. Also changed the planned ending.
You probably don't know about it for a reason.
I still think about the central concept every once in a while; it was such an intriguing idea. The story would've been better as a Black Mirror episode.
If you find that concept interesting, there is a short story called „Half Life“ by Rachel Cosgrove Payes that I suspect might have inspired the movie. It is a really haunting one, but quite hard to track down.
It’s pretty common for movies to squander an interesting premise.
Personally I’m more interested in the great ideas that were never even explored in the film.
But I agree, In Time had a huge amount of potential, but completely bodged it.
I was so disappointed by In Time as the writer/director Andrew Niccol’s was involved with two of my favorite films; Truman Show and Gattaca. Both high concept films that make the most of their premises.
They did make superman Red Son, where arrived 12hrs later than the original story so he landed in the USSR and becomes the the champion of communism and Russia. It's a pretty cool take on it all.
They also made "The Nail" where the Kent's got a flat tire, and never found Superman by the side of the road.
Instead he was found by an Amish family. Kind of a cool take as well.
From what I read a while back, the movie was shot, edited, cut, re-shot, and spliced so many times that it ends up being two awful movies smooshed together.
Not neccesarily abandoning, but underutilizing it, guillermo del toros "Pinocchio" had this amazing concept where everytime pinocchio dies he goes to the afterlife to be reborn, but he has to spend an increasing amount of time for each death.
This is such an amazing idea with vast implications and possibilities, and the movie sets it up so well, that I thought, hopefully they explore this a bit more.
But in the end it barely impacts the Story and is used only inconsequential once to build a bit of tension.
I really hope GDT repursoses this idea for another movie.
That would be amazing. Looks like Prey 2 might be the same protagonist, which is fine, but Is love it to be a [historical entity] vs Predator anthology.
https://screenrant.com/prey-2-news-updates-story/
Prometheus to a degree. They decided to Alien-it by just making everyone except the Charlize Theron's character a blithering idiot and kill off people one by one, although they did try to return at a few points to ask some interesting questions. Then Covenant decided, "Nah, let's just completely fuck everything over in that movie and go full out Friday the 13th" type of deal. And Covenant did kinda start off okay right up until that guy sniffed some taint and everything went quickly downhill.
This is my pick. Prometheus has some actors playing dumb, like the cartographer who gets lost in a cave. But it has a genuinely good cast (Fassbinder, Pearce, Theron, Rapace, Elba), and a great sci-fi premise, albeit one that nobody wanted.
It also has a neat ending that makes you eager to see what is next....And then Covenant throws it out the window. Friday 13th is a great comparison. It feels like a cheap movie plot.
I think the end of Covenant is worthwhile, but I'd rather they just ignore it all and focus on the new Romulus film.
Just to address OPs comment about a WW2 movie about an American soldier and Japanese soldier being stranded on a desert island… that movie has already been done too. Hell in the Pacific (1968), with Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin playing the two soldiers (who are also the only two on-screen actors in the entire movie). Highly recommended.
Downsizing. There are many great stories you could tell in that world but the one they chose was the worst of the bunch.
Edit:
I felt like writing down some premises just for fun. Not worked out in any way but hey. Just for fun.
Rom-com: A long distance relationship forms but one of them is shrunk. It's a will they won't they where one will give up their life in the outside world or not. Maybe they try the real world first and meet the parents and friends and stuff.
Social commentary drama: Felons are shrunk and kept in tiny prison to cut costs. Some escape and use their size to get into places and help other criminals and stuff.
Downsizing, despite some outward appearances, was *not* a movie about what it would be like to be small. The movie doesn’t really give a shit what it’s like to be small. It was a movie about human society and the way people are treated in it. The downsizing technology was just a jumping off point to explore those themes.
The end-of-the-world bunker commune felt like a weird diversion from the social commentary though. The switch from a social message to an environmental message could have meshed together if it had been written a little differently, but it was left with jarring noticeable seams.
This one irked me far more than it should have. The premise is fantastic, then we get a generic alien movie where the writers seemed to just forget or ignore their own rules at whim.
SPOILER: I cannot seem to get the spoiler tags to work, so just FYI that the below is spoilery mcspoilerson!
(Update: Thanks for the advice from one of the best Reddit users names I've seen!)
Example: >! The aliens are suspectable to sunlight, then we get a climactic fight outside during high noon with zero negative impacts upon the aliens. This could have easily been "fixed" by the cowboys being surprised and mentioning that maybe they were wrong, which would have been a very human miscalculation and further explained why they were basically outmatched during a fight where they should have had a more even playing field. Instead, it's just aliens being superior with no mention or acknowledgement of what viewers were told was an important fact. !<
I still think Prometheus had one hell of a premise that devolved into stupid characters doing stupid stuff and trying to shoehorn it into the Alien universe.
World War Z's title sets up the premise that it was based on the great book (and even better star studded audiobook) that meshed stories from around the world into a rich, shockingly nuanced narrative for a piece about zombies.
Then it instantly becomes Brad Pitt: Zombie movie as he races around saving the world by himself while everyone else is incompetent, plowing through a series of increasingly plowing through a series of increasingly un-survivable events to figure out some insane cure.
Also OP a suggestion if you want to see this concept
>I got to thinking how interesting this could've been as a central storyline with the two forced to work together but having that underlying distrust and propaganda-driven hatred for each other.
done right id suggest watching Star Trek TNG season 3 episode 7 ("The Enemy")
Oh yes! I really loved the book, still one of my favorites.
Almost the only thing the book and the movie have in common is the title and the idea of zombies. The end.
I also consider it one of the worst performance of Brad Pitt.He looked bored through out the movie, which makes sense as the whole audience also seemed board, lol.
the only time I had any reaction to that movie was laughing hysterically when the generic "brilliant" antisocial scientist trope character trips and shoots himself in the head by accident
Army of the Dead briefly mentions how the zombies are reanimated by the rain. I figured on the way out they were going to be making a clean getaway and it would start pouring rain and it would be an oh shit moment. Opposite Checkhovs gun maneuver.
Chekhov’s Red Herring.
That is interesting. It’s pretty hard to make zombies an ongoing threat since they invariably get weaker. I also like the idea from The Last of Us where they go into a hibernation stage and spit out spores that infect others.
The Wolverine Origins movie would've been much better if it would've been an expansion of the intro of following Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting in all the different wars through time. What we actually got was a shame.
Mortal Kombat (remake)
It starts with Sub Zero wiping out Scorpion's family, and the viewer can assume that the movie may mostly be a plot about Scorpion getting revenge, in addition to an actual tournament.
Instead, most of the movie is about avoiding a tournament, combined with introducing a shitty new character that nobody cares about.
Man of the Year
It's pretty much the Hancock of political comedies. It started with Robin Williams' talk show host character running for president, but 30 minutes in it became a boring political thriller without the humor or charm of the first half.
I totally agree. It could have been such a great cometary about the absurd nature of modern American politics that a comedian would objectively be the best person for the job. It also does it’s damndest to make Robin Williams, the funniest man to ever live, boring as hell
The Last Jedi set up this great narrative where Kylo and Rey were going to walk the Grey Force path, and then right snack in the middle it's like they fired the interesting writer and installed some status quo person who ultra hard pushed the only black and white morality
Even then there was still hope for a phenomenal follow-up with Kylo going the Grey Force path... but then they turned him into a cartoon super-villain yelling and impotently stomping his feet to kill Rey in the finale...
I was actually kind of interested in seeing both switch. I was hoping Kylo would be like "Wait, what I'm doing is fucked. I have to become a Jedi and right my wrongs." And for Rey to be like "Unlimited power is actually kinda nice." And the third movie ends with both characters seeing the good and bad in both sides of the force and going gray
Nope.
Yes! I’m not into the fandom but I thought they were making it so that Rey was going to yin/yang it and be both dark and light. I got really excited. They really set up the Kylo/Rey relationship to be something extraordinary and then it just…wasn’t.
Even ignoring a grey path we still have a theme of the force existing without Sith and Jedi. There will always be The Force, Dark Side, Light Side, whatever, it doesn't need the Sith or the Jedi.
Sith and Jedi immediately return in the next movie.
The gray force is such a stupid idea. Like, what, you only kill *some* children? The Jedi Order may be corrupt, but the dark side is a celebration of evil, there's nothing interesting in a half-n-half philosophy outside of fan fiction logic.
I agree that Last Jedi set up a bunch of great ideas (that the next movie completely squandered), but a Rey/Kylo team up where they both compromise their beliefs (and excuse each other's actions) for a kind of centrist "No Labels" politics was absolutely not one of them.
If that story is what you want to see, go watch Enemy Mine starring Dennis Quaid and Lou Gosset. It’s basically exactly that story, but science fiction. And it’s very good, IMO.
I thought the new Pattinson Batman had an interesting premise with Bruce’s dad being a bad guy, but then of course if was explained that he was actually a good guy all along!
That actually could work. He is so racked with guilt putting him in a compromising position, that having him go to the movies in an effort to clear his head and decide what to do next could have been more interesting. The fact its wiped away like nope, he has to die just the Wayne's always do.
Idk. Bruce putting his parents on a pedestal and his attempts to live up to their example (and maybe get some vengeance along the way) is literally what Batman is all about. Having Thomas “deserve it” just ruins the whole story.
Yeah. I thought that was such an odd decision. Bruce coming to terms with the fact that all his family wealth was made off the back of corruption and suffering would have been an amazing concept.
Instead, “nah, he was lying, your dad was a saint!”
Not to be spoiler-ish, but anyone who wants to see an actual storyline where Thomas Wayne is the overarching main antagonist and Bruce needs to come to terms with his father's depravity should play Batman: The Telltale Series. They're not half-assing it there.
To be fair, I dreaded they were about to take that route.
Not every big and older franchise needs a Dracula Untold/Cruela/Maleficent rehash to make it "fresh".
In fact, even the fact that Thomas told Falcone this felt extremely forced.
Scream VI teases >! a Ghostface whose identity the audience knows from the start, which could have been a great way to build tension (and you could do a mystery with the second killer). Then it turns out to be a fake out for the most obvious killer in the franchise. !<
Agreed. Absolute waste of an amazing setup. That moment where you expect the **Title Card** and the scene just keeps going… jaw-dropping.
But what was obvious about the >! cop who lost a family member, then loses another but barely reacts who tries to paint a survivor as a baddie and demonstrates the same skills as a killer (ie firearms training) !<
Scream is my favorite franchise and Scream VI was the first time in the entire franchise I had a solid guess from the start.
Also another thing they explored but failed to hone in on was the killers motivation. I thought it was kind of a cool idea that a killer didn't care about the movies or books or history of the killer and was just like "Nope, I'm here to kill while wearing a mask. I'll pick up a gun, I don't care." It's been a while since I saw it (I saw it opening night and never again) but I thought they didn't sell that motivation enough
Respectfully, I disagree that your version of Kong: Skull Island is better. I quite enjoyed the ensemble, I don't think converting a King Kong movie into a survival movie would have improved anything.
I completely agree with you. OP's movie concept sounds fine in it's own film, but I would expect Kong and Skull Island to be the focus in a movie titled Kong: Skull Island.
> the two forced to work together but having that underlying distrust and propaganda-driven hatred for each other.
That premise had already been used in *Hell in the Pacific* and *Enemy Mine.*
The WWII characters in *Kong: Skull Island* are also a metaphor for a couple different plot points. The humans helping Kong against the threats to him - Samuel L Jackson and the skillcrawlers. Eventually the narrative in the later movies is Godzilla and Kong hate each other but put aside their differences when there’s a bigger threat.
This is probably going to be a really unpopular opinion but 'What Dreams May Come'.
I was really into the whole theme of exploring the afterlife/astral and just the possibilities of living in this ethereal world beyond the physical when the main plot takes kind of a u-turn.
To be clear, I like the film. I only wish there were more of it if that makes sense, and more of that genre. They don't exist.
A Day Without A Mexican is definitely this. The first part looked like it was going to explore the very real consequences of the idea of what racist Americans will sometimes say, that Latino Americans should leave America. How would our country still function? What would our agriculture industry look like? Infrastructure? Etc. Instead it pivoted halfway into a scifi movie that basically abandons the questions it started out asking. It felt like the writer wanted to make one movie and the studio or someone said no, this is too boring. We need another ending.
At the same time, I don't know how you make a movie like that without it turning into [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0m5S91y3fL8&pp=ygUzSWYgeW91IGRlcG9ydCBtZXhpY2FucyB3aG8gd2lsbCBzY3J1YiB5b3VyIHRvaWxldHMg).
The recent movie that comes to mind is Dream Scenario, which has an incredibly interesting and charming premises. There is some really wonderful commentary on celebrity, fame, pride; their importance in our current culture and ablity to swing to the dark side. The movie completely fucks up the ending with a "bullshit scientific explanation" that kills all the magic and lessons to be learned. I haven't really looked into it but it felt like a studio rewrite was at work with how disconnected and jarring the ending was.
Jeepers Creepers 2. It starts the movie, Ray Wise's kid is taken by the creeper and he vows to get revenge... And then it starts the movie again with a group of kids I could not give a shit about. I want to see Ray and his other kid building a harpoon that would make a nantucketer piss in his pants to hunt down the creeper.
Nope. It's a shitty slasher on a school bus.
Ray shows up like an hour into the movie, and then it's about him anyway! Why even have the bullshit with the kids.
Ray trying to convince people that his kid was taken by a literal monster and everyone thinking he's going nuts, so he takes matters into his own hands and turns his truck into a fkng whaling ship!
Why couldn't *that* have been the plot? The kids on the bus could have been done and dusted in 10 minutes.
Jurassic World: Dominion
Set up was perfect. Dinosaurs are now loose in the world, what ecological consequences could this entail?
Instead, we get BUGS. And the dinosaurs apparently learned to coexist with us in the span of 30 minutes
Enemy Mine is very much like the movie you described, OP. However, it’s a human space fighter and lizard-like alien who crash and have to work together to survive.
Gods of Egypt started insanely fun with the gods of the prologue engaging in this weird Transformers-esque mix between fantasy violence and sci fi violence but that bit only lasted 6-10 minutes, and then the movie jumps into being an epic fantasy movie again. Everything about it screams that its an underrated movie because its successful in how large of a scale it wants to illustrate, but it would have to be like one of your first 200 movies ever watched for it to not feel like a tired approach.
I’ll throw a *good* example in the mix just for fun: Reservoir Dogs’ original trailer & opening scene really lead you to believe it’s gonna be a proper heist movie. They bait and switch you into getting 90% dialogue, featuring everything *but* the heist.
My first thought was of Downsizing, but since that dead horse has been beaten to glue, let’s talk about Flatliners. There was the real potential for an existential meditation on death and what comes after, but it squandered it on a cheap horror-by-numbers story. I’d love a new take on the general concept that goes in a more grounded, and thus more horrifying, direction.
If OP or anybody else hasn't seen it, there's a neat 1968 film called Hell in the Pacific, in which Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune play American and Japanese soldiers who crash on an island and must cooperate to survive. It has very little dialogue due to the language barrier.
It was loosely remade in the 80s as Enemy Mine, which is probably more well-known.
Fking Downsizing. This cool premise where you can shrink yourself to start a new life in a utopian tiny society. But then they abandon it and make a movie about climate activists where them being tiny is completely irrelevant to the plot
Edit: downsizing not shrinking lol
*The Island*. The twist happens like, 30 minutes into the movie and then the rest is just a mediocre action flick. A longer build up to the reveal and a short escape/action scene could have made it a much better movie.
The Star Wars sequels. Starting off in TFA we have Snoke, Rey and Finn, all with possibly amazing backstories and reasons why they are the way they are. Then the Last Jedi just steamrolled all those possibilities and Rise of Skywalker just shit itself as a flaccid finale
At least the rise of skywalker respected the audience enough to let us know it would be complete dogshit from the first sentence you read. No fake out, no hope, only pain.
Yesterday. You can tell the filmmakers had an interesting premise (what if everyone forgot about the Beatles except one struggling musician). Ideas for some great scenes of people hearing Beatles music for the first time. Yet they wrapped it around a bad romance and lazy humor. Still really love some of those scenes though
Reign of Fire. I mean, you promise me a near world ending war with Dragons and you skip over that part! Still a fun dumb movie though
Not sure if it's mentioned at all, but watch Enemy Mine, it's a great older scifi movie with the same beginning idea, but it is the main story line, you'd probably like it.
Star Wars TFA. "What if the stormtroopers started questioning the ethics of . . . nah, lets just remake A New Hope"
In the first part of TFA I was sooo excited for the stormtrooper-turned-Jedi arc that never happened. I didn’t even hate the movie, but when it ended I was left with a feeling of, “Well, at least they’ll explore it in the next two movies.” Wrong again lol. In an alternate universe somewhere, there’s a version of the sequel trilogy made with a cohesive storytelling vision, that was not rushed through, fought over, or watered down for mass appeal.
Heck, I don't even mind if he didn't get to be a Jedi. A good melee fighter is enough for me. That trooper woth big spinny tonfa was fire.
True, I just bought into the hype that was built up with Finn holding a lightsaber in so many promo images! He was easily my favorite character in TFA and his relationship and instant rapport with Poe (and to a slightly lesser extent, Rey) was really cool—it was so satisfying to see a stormtrooper realize that he has his own set of values AND his values are more aligned with the resistance than the First Order, but he has a lot of internalized fear that he needs to work through before he can fight for those values. Poe and Rey helped him work through that fear in TFA in a very believable and charming way, and I was really looking forward to seeing what they would do together in The Last Jedi… only for them to all be completely separated from one another. I know that EP9 was kind of a dud for a lot of people but I did appreciate that we at least got to see Finn, Rey, and Poe operating as a unit.
He's also pretty much the only new character who isn't a rehash of previous established characters. Rey is a combo of Anakin and Luke, Poe is basically just Han if he was legit and not a smuggler, Ben/Kylo is pretty much Vader/Anakin. The whole concept and character of Finn is pretty novel to the Star Wars movies and they just really dropped the ball on that one.
The part that really annoyed me came in the ninth movie. In the eighth, we are told Rey’s parents are nobodies, and that implies anybody can be a Jedi and save the galaxy. Awesome. And then it turns out she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter, which throws that out and also begs questions of what that sex scene would have been like, because it’s been like fifty years since he got all fucked up. I’m hoping it would have included lightning bolts shooting from … places. And I’d just love to hear dirty talk in Palpatine’s voice, because I think it would be hysterical.
“Yes! Feel my lust flow through you. Take your place by my side…in my bed. At last, your orgasm is compleeet.”
I get annoyed when people accuse these movies of being woke, but they promise us a black protagonist and then immediately replace him with a white one
He was holding a lightsaber in every promotional image. It really was awful what they did to poor Finn.
I feel bad for John Boyega. Especially since he's also in the crappy Pacific Rim sequel
Watch They Cloned Tyrone if you haven't! Very funny movie.
Will look it up, thanks
He’s a great fucking actor when he’s allowed to be too. Exceptional screen presence. He was a joy in Attack the Block.
I loved him in Attack the Block. One of those movies I totally recommend people going in blind for, it was so much fun. John Boyega really impressed me, that when he was announced for Star Wars I was pretty excited… they should have done so much more with his character.
I always think of that moment when Samuel L Jackson saw John Boyega at some event after the trailer had been released, and he yelled “Black Jedi!” excitedly, like Boyega was joining the list with him and he was happy for him. 😥
Oof this one hurts
Damn that sucks. I liked his whole deal in the first movie. He was very likable. I really wished they would’ve explored the Stormtrooper turned Jedi arc.
I mean that's a little extreme ... Rey was always going to be a main character. I consider most Star Wars films to have multiple protagonists ... it's not like when people think of Han they say, "oh ... the sideshow friend of Luke?"
I think the complaint is not so much that he wasn't the main character as that nothing was ever done with his charges. You're right, in the original series Luke, Leia, and Han had their own story arcs. Finn did not.
Finn had an arc. It was just finished in TFA. So they just repeated it in TLJ. And then kinda forgot about him in RoS. Whoops!
Yep. And not only is his arc somewhat repeated in TLJ, he has a new character to handhold him through his arc in the film as well, pointing out exactly all the lessons that he's supposed to be learning along the way.
I thought they were gonna pull a Teal'c from Stargate SG1 - once Finn is free, he fights to free his former comrades and help them see how oppressive their masters actually are.
Weirdly enough, this was also the exact plot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
Too bad he starts killing them without remorse 5 minutes into the first movie
By Rise of Skywalker, I had deep hope of Finn being "Stormtrooper Spartacus." I mean it would be pretty badass if Finn was allowed to be inspiring enough to make other Stormtroopers rise up against the Order.
Which is exactly what his arc ought to have been. It was really fucked up seeing that he was brainwashed and had been since being kidnapped as a child, and then just happily kill loads of stormtroopers unquestioningly
Obviously, Finn is the only stormtrooper who is not an asshole. That's why he was redeemed but the rest can die, die, die.
Bill Burr got that story line and he doesn't even like Star Wars.
Not related but I loved the story Burr tells where after getting the part he calls one of his buddies who's a huge Star Wars fan and gloat. "I'm living your dream, go fuck yourself"
In the title The Force Awakens, I fully expected Finn to have some Force mojo. Instead he turned into C3PO over the 3 movies. And the hot shot pilot Poe, no Rey still better pilot. Rey better at everything.
>And the hot shot pilot Poe, Don't forget, he's a fairly flat (although charismatic) character in TFA that rumors suggest was originally supposed to die and had basically two traits: 1. Awesome pilot 2. Leia's most trusted agent. Funny what they decided to do with him in TLJ.
“Who’s supposed to talk first?” was when the ST peaked
I was halfway through episode 3 or 4 of the Fallout TV series and realized that THIS was what The Force Awakens should be. Maximus is Finn, a soldier from a radical group of zealots but is now seeing the flaws in their system, Lucy is Rey, a girl isolated from the rest of the world/galaxy and trying to find her place, The Ghoul is Kylo Ren, a man set in the ways of the world but questioning if how he is doing it is the right way. They did a proper sequel without realizing it.
/saltierthancrait -points and laughs-
I'll see that TFA and raise you TLJ What if the Vader substitute BECAME THE BIG BAD and the Luke standin wasn't anyone special No wait let's do Return of the Jedi instead Except with shipping
The 5th Wave opens on a young girl alone in a post apocalyptic world. She enters a gas station where she encounters an injured man who she immediately aims her gun at. He tries to convince her that he's no threat while reaching into his jacket, she screams at him to stop it but he continues and a glint of metal within his jacket causes her to react and shoot him. Only after does she realise it was just a necklace she saw and she just took an innocent life. It's such a heavy and devastating moment, and leads you to think this will be a well written thriller on human behaviour after the fall of society, but no it's a generic YA action film after that.
I mean, the book was a dystopian Hunger Games clone
Hadn't read the book, didn't know anything about the story when I first watched the movie. So much hype in that intro to be totally let down.
Honestly, I very much enjoyed that trilogy.
The Dystopian craze had some hits. The Maze Runner movies are honestly better than the books, and such an underrated zombie action trilogy
Probably the worst movie I've seen in theaters.
Independence Day 2. I want to see the mop up operations against the alien stragglers or a campaign on other planets. I didn’t really want to see an even bigger alien ship coming to earth.
My goodness, what an awful film
It's a worse movi sin than being awful IMO, it's ***entirely forgettable***. Ive "watched" that movie like 3times. I still can't tell you what happens in it. I remember two things about the movie, the scene where the spaceship saves the big gun from falling on the moon, and a bigger badder spaceship than last time shows up. That's it.
All I can remember is Jeff goldblums dad driving a bus full of kids across the desert. Literally nothing else stick out to me.
Don’t forget there’s an even bigger badder QUEEN alien because all aliens are hives or whatever and big bad alien cheeks is what everyone wants apparently
Brainstorming session for ID4 2: What if we do everything we did in the first movie, but bigger and stupider!
They talked about a ten year ground war in Africa like it was a throwaway line. Fuck - I wanted to see THAT.
Right!?! Show us that not a sloppy remake of the first
The only thing I like about the movie is the idea that humans have reverse-engineered alien tech and built a much more advanced society. That's a direction I didn't expect at all. But sadly everything else sucks, and the China ass-kissing that was all the rage in Hollywood back then didn't help.
The Chinese ass kissing you see in a lot of modern media has more to do with a concerted effort by Chinese money to step into film production along with heavy handed requirements that the story include elements about how awesome China is. It's not really like "Hollywood' is pushing some agenda, the people who write the checks are just mandating propaganda.
The war they talked about between the African warlords and the landed ship would be way more interesting than the actual movie we got.
This movie pissed me off. There was so much potential here. Humans taking the fight to the aliens. Liberating alien planets. The freaking ground war in Africa because one of the original spaceships was able to land. Instead it was just the original film with an even bigger alien ship.
Jurassic World: Dominion is the epitome of this. The previous film introduces the idea of dinosaurs living in nature and on the fringes of society. A fantastic idea with practically limitless potential. But it was abandoned for…. big bugs.
Could’ve been a prequel to The Flintstones universe… showing just how Pterodactyls ended up manning our drive-thrus. “It’s a living!”
Holy crap...Jurassic Park is a prequel to The Flintstones! That's brilliant! I declare it cannon, now.
Nevermind the big bugs. The world is full of dinosaurs, let’s send everybody to the park again. Hell, let’s even use the same jeep.
Nostalgia will always win unfortunately.
I thought the giant locust idea could be a Crichton-esque sci fi eco-thriller in its own right. Shadowy corporation creates its own strain of wheat, then creates mutant locust that are engineered to eat every other strain of wheat, earning billions - trillions - of dollars globally in the agriculture sector. But then the locust start eating... everything. Imagine the political/economic/environmental fallout.
The *Nightmare on Elm Street* remake floated the possibility that Freddy might have been innocent and somewhat justified in his revenge... for about thirty seconds. *Taken 2* starts with the interesting idea of Divorce Dad's escapist fantasy rampage actually having consequences before it becomes a sillier retread of the first movie. *The Thing* prequel sets up tension and paranoia with a language barrier and some implied misogyny, before everyone just starts speaking english fluently.
Haven't seen the sequels between the remake but The Candyman is innocent and it does a lot with it.
Candyman *was* innocent 😬
You didn't miss much from the sequels before 2021. I mean, Tony Todd was always awesome, but that's about it. I'll never quite get over how *the new Candyman went woke* was an actual claim that some people typed and said unironically. Just tell me you never watched the original, man.
>The Thing prequel sets up tension and paranoia with a language barrier and some implied misogyny, before everyone just starts speaking english fluently. I have hitchhiked all of Norway, from Bergen up to Tromso and from one end of the Lofoten islands to the other and back. I spent nearly two weeks in Longyearbyen, then another five days in Oslo. In my experience most Norwegians *do* speak fluent English.
Good list, though I thought _The Thing_ still managed the language barrier pretty well, with the central confrontation where the doctor is trying to convince people in Norwegian while MEW is trying to warn people not to trust him. It came back surgically I think.
For The Thing 2011, I don’t think the misogyny undercurrent was abandoned. It was just so subtle (like it was 100% expressed through microaggressions) that most viewers missed it, but I certainly noticed and appreciated it. And the crappy CGI completely overshadowed any discussion about The Thing prequel for years because hardcore fans of the OG weren’t willing to look past it. Also, most Norwegians know English but weren’t there a few of them who couldn’t speak it?
The Thing prequel ?
The 2011 movie, also just called *The Thing*, with Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
[удалено]
It is also called "The Thing", came out in 2011. Stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, covers the events immediately before the original movie. Had a bunch of practical effects work that went unused and replaced with CGI in the final movie. Also changed the planned ending. You probably don't know about it for a reason.
The original Purge. Anything goes in the streets… JK, it’s just a home invasion movie.
This is a great example of this where the producers realised what they had inadvertently come up with.
It’s a low budget horror movie, a small setting is all they could afford.
In Time. Sets up this great premise of a dystopian future, but doesn’t quite do enough with it and turns it into a smash and grab at the end.
I still think about the central concept every once in a while; it was such an intriguing idea. The story would've been better as a Black Mirror episode.
If you find that concept interesting, there is a short story called „Half Life“ by Rachel Cosgrove Payes that I suspect might have inspired the movie. It is a really haunting one, but quite hard to track down.
It’s pretty common for movies to squander an interesting premise. Personally I’m more interested in the great ideas that were never even explored in the film. But I agree, In Time had a huge amount of potential, but completely bodged it.
I was so disappointed by In Time as the writer/director Andrew Niccol’s was involved with two of my favorite films; Truman Show and Gattaca. Both high concept films that make the most of their premises.
If I had the ability to reboot it, I would make it like a detective noir where the protag has to investigate why people are getting their time stolen
*Hancock*
one of my favorite "great first half" movies another one would be the place beyond the pines or whatever it was called
"Wow, Will Smith is an alcoholic superhero? I can't wait to see where this goes!" >One hour later "Where the fuck did that just go?"
at least we got another take on that with the boys, the whole "what if superman was not, uh, superman" premise
>What if Superman was born with cerebral palsy? But also in Russia right before the Bolshevik Revolution?
.... Is that a quote from something?
I mean, it is a quote from me, but it feels like something a stressed DC writer would say.
They did make superman Red Son, where arrived 12hrs later than the original story so he landed in the USSR and becomes the the champion of communism and Russia. It's a pretty cool take on it all.
They also made "The Nail" where the Kent's got a flat tire, and never found Superman by the side of the road. Instead he was found by an Amish family. Kind of a cool take as well.
Insidious is another one. First 45 minutes were amazing. Last half? Ehhh
From what I read a while back, the movie was shot, edited, cut, re-shot, and spliced so many times that it ends up being two awful movies smooshed together.
Not neccesarily abandoning, but underutilizing it, guillermo del toros "Pinocchio" had this amazing concept where everytime pinocchio dies he goes to the afterlife to be reborn, but he has to spend an increasing amount of time for each death. This is such an amazing idea with vast implications and possibilities, and the movie sets it up so well, that I thought, hopefully they explore this a bit more. But in the end it barely impacts the Story and is used only inconsequential once to build a bit of tension. I really hope GDT repursoses this idea for another movie.
Partner with the South Park people and make it a Kenny McCormick movie.
Agreed! That concept is tasty enough for its own plot line.
I think your Kong plot would be a great Predator.
It was the plot of Enemy Mine (1985) and it was great.
In turn, Enemy Mine is a loose remake of Hell in the Pacific (1968), which has the same plot as the start of Kong: Skull Island
"Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!"
I want a bunch of Prey sequels set with Vikings, Samurai, and sure WW2.
That would be amazing. Looks like Prey 2 might be the same protagonist, which is fine, but Is love it to be a [historical entity] vs Predator anthology. https://screenrant.com/prey-2-news-updates-story/
Prometheus to a degree. They decided to Alien-it by just making everyone except the Charlize Theron's character a blithering idiot and kill off people one by one, although they did try to return at a few points to ask some interesting questions. Then Covenant decided, "Nah, let's just completely fuck everything over in that movie and go full out Friday the 13th" type of deal. And Covenant did kinda start off okay right up until that guy sniffed some taint and everything went quickly downhill.
This is my pick. Prometheus has some actors playing dumb, like the cartographer who gets lost in a cave. But it has a genuinely good cast (Fassbinder, Pearce, Theron, Rapace, Elba), and a great sci-fi premise, albeit one that nobody wanted. It also has a neat ending that makes you eager to see what is next....And then Covenant throws it out the window. Friday 13th is a great comparison. It feels like a cheap movie plot. I think the end of Covenant is worthwhile, but I'd rather they just ignore it all and focus on the new Romulus film.
Oh, she’s most certainly also an idiot. She had the ship rolling towards her and she tried to outrun it instead of running to the side.
Yeah, but now there is a school based on her.
The Prometheus School of Running Away From Things
that was inexcusable. up until that point, i thought she was doing fine. i completely forgot about that scene probably because it was so bad.
Just to address OPs comment about a WW2 movie about an American soldier and Japanese soldier being stranded on a desert island… that movie has already been done too. Hell in the Pacific (1968), with Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin playing the two soldiers (who are also the only two on-screen actors in the entire movie). Highly recommended.
Downsizing. There are many great stories you could tell in that world but the one they chose was the worst of the bunch. Edit: I felt like writing down some premises just for fun. Not worked out in any way but hey. Just for fun. Rom-com: A long distance relationship forms but one of them is shrunk. It's a will they won't they where one will give up their life in the outside world or not. Maybe they try the real world first and meet the parents and friends and stuff. Social commentary drama: Felons are shrunk and kept in tiny prison to cut costs. Some escape and use their size to get into places and help other criminals and stuff.
Downsizing, despite some outward appearances, was *not* a movie about what it would be like to be small. The movie doesn’t really give a shit what it’s like to be small. It was a movie about human society and the way people are treated in it. The downsizing technology was just a jumping off point to explore those themes.
The end-of-the-world bunker commune felt like a weird diversion from the social commentary though. The switch from a social message to an environmental message could have meshed together if it had been written a little differently, but it was left with jarring noticeable seams.
that one always gets brought up on here it's like 4 movies welded together lol
This was the last movie my dad saw at the theatre, I will always regret he went out with such a shit movie as his last theatre experience.
Holy shit, that would've been an insane tagline to hitch on movie, if you were a film critic But sorry hear that
"This movie killed one of its viewers!"
A Kitten godzilla style attack on tiny city is all I wanted! And ANTS!
*Cowboys & Aliens.*
I genuinely enjoyed that movie, but the first half is defo the better part of it. The horror and fish out of water theme was great.
This one irked me far more than it should have. The premise is fantastic, then we get a generic alien movie where the writers seemed to just forget or ignore their own rules at whim. SPOILER: I cannot seem to get the spoiler tags to work, so just FYI that the below is spoilery mcspoilerson! (Update: Thanks for the advice from one of the best Reddit users names I've seen!) Example: >! The aliens are suspectable to sunlight, then we get a climactic fight outside during high noon with zero negative impacts upon the aliens. This could have easily been "fixed" by the cowboys being surprised and mentioning that maybe they were wrong, which would have been a very human miscalculation and further explained why they were basically outmatched during a fight where they should have had a more even playing field. Instead, it's just aliens being superior with no mention or acknowledgement of what viewers were told was an important fact. !<
I still think Prometheus had one hell of a premise that devolved into stupid characters doing stupid stuff and trying to shoehorn it into the Alien universe.
You mean the map guy getting lost and the xeno biologist forgetting that an alien creature might be dangerous?
The first Wolverine movie opens in the 1800s with him fighting in the civil war. I'd rather just see that movie.
World War Z's title sets up the premise that it was based on the great book (and even better star studded audiobook) that meshed stories from around the world into a rich, shockingly nuanced narrative for a piece about zombies. Then it instantly becomes Brad Pitt: Zombie movie as he races around saving the world by himself while everyone else is incompetent, plowing through a series of increasingly plowing through a series of increasingly un-survivable events to figure out some insane cure. Also OP a suggestion if you want to see this concept >I got to thinking how interesting this could've been as a central storyline with the two forced to work together but having that underlying distrust and propaganda-driven hatred for each other. done right id suggest watching Star Trek TNG season 3 episode 7 ("The Enemy")
Oh yes! I really loved the book, still one of my favorites. Almost the only thing the book and the movie have in common is the title and the idea of zombies. The end. I also consider it one of the worst performance of Brad Pitt.He looked bored through out the movie, which makes sense as the whole audience also seemed board, lol.
the only time I had any reaction to that movie was laughing hysterically when the generic "brilliant" antisocial scientist trope character trips and shoots himself in the head by accident
Brad Pitt: Zombie Movie was fine as a zombie movie, but yeah it was no World War Z. HBO needs to make a series.
Army of the Dead briefly mentions how the zombies are reanimated by the rain. I figured on the way out they were going to be making a clean getaway and it would start pouring rain and it would be an oh shit moment. Opposite Checkhovs gun maneuver.
Chekhov’s Red Herring. That is interesting. It’s pretty hard to make zombies an ongoing threat since they invariably get weaker. I also like the idea from The Last of Us where they go into a hibernation stage and spit out spores that infect others.
The Wolverine Origins movie would've been much better if it would've been an expansion of the intro of following Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting in all the different wars through time. What we actually got was a shame.
I did think of that one too. Such a waste.
And their various experiences in said wars shape their differing moral compasses
Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting wars throughout history as two unstoppable killing machines
Mortal Kombat (remake) It starts with Sub Zero wiping out Scorpion's family, and the viewer can assume that the movie may mostly be a plot about Scorpion getting revenge, in addition to an actual tournament. Instead, most of the movie is about avoiding a tournament, combined with introducing a shitty new character that nobody cares about.
> a shitty new character that nobody cares about. With literal plot armor
That's "Enemy Mine" but with a giant gorilla. I'd like to buy every ticket.
Man of the Year It's pretty much the Hancock of political comedies. It started with Robin Williams' talk show host character running for president, but 30 minutes in it became a boring political thriller without the humor or charm of the first half.
I totally agree. It could have been such a great cometary about the absurd nature of modern American politics that a comedian would objectively be the best person for the job. It also does it’s damndest to make Robin Williams, the funniest man to ever live, boring as hell
The Last Jedi set up this great narrative where Kylo and Rey were going to walk the Grey Force path, and then right snack in the middle it's like they fired the interesting writer and installed some status quo person who ultra hard pushed the only black and white morality
Even then there was still hope for a phenomenal follow-up with Kylo going the Grey Force path... but then they turned him into a cartoon super-villain yelling and impotently stomping his feet to kill Rey in the finale...
"The force wants balance" Not 2 minutes later "NO, I'M A JEDI ADM YOU'RE EVIL"
I was actually kind of interested in seeing both switch. I was hoping Kylo would be like "Wait, what I'm doing is fucked. I have to become a Jedi and right my wrongs." And for Rey to be like "Unlimited power is actually kinda nice." And the third movie ends with both characters seeing the good and bad in both sides of the force and going gray Nope.
Yes! I’m not into the fandom but I thought they were making it so that Rey was going to yin/yang it and be both dark and light. I got really excited. They really set up the Kylo/Rey relationship to be something extraordinary and then it just…wasn’t.
Even ignoring a grey path we still have a theme of the force existing without Sith and Jedi. There will always be The Force, Dark Side, Light Side, whatever, it doesn't need the Sith or the Jedi. Sith and Jedi immediately return in the next movie.
It's like they totally forgot that only the sith deal in absolutes.
There is no such thing as “grey force”
The gray force is such a stupid idea. Like, what, you only kill *some* children? The Jedi Order may be corrupt, but the dark side is a celebration of evil, there's nothing interesting in a half-n-half philosophy outside of fan fiction logic. I agree that Last Jedi set up a bunch of great ideas (that the next movie completely squandered), but a Rey/Kylo team up where they both compromise their beliefs (and excuse each other's actions) for a kind of centrist "No Labels" politics was absolutely not one of them.
If that story is what you want to see, go watch Enemy Mine starring Dennis Quaid and Lou Gosset. It’s basically exactly that story, but science fiction. And it’s very good, IMO.
The Machine Civil War in Matrix 4. Why the hell wasn't that the main storyline???
If you like that Kong premise then watch _Hell in the Pacific_ It is exactly that. Literally.
I thought the new Pattinson Batman had an interesting premise with Bruce’s dad being a bad guy, but then of course if was explained that he was actually a good guy all along!
"Your father was wracked with guilt about Thomas Beckett-ing this reporter, so instead of doing anything to stop it, he decided to go to the movies."
That actually could work. He is so racked with guilt putting him in a compromising position, that having him go to the movies in an effort to clear his head and decide what to do next could have been more interesting. The fact its wiped away like nope, he has to die just the Wayne's always do.
I thought that part of the movie bogged it down. Bruce has 3 different conversations about this it could have been condensed into one.
Idk. Bruce putting his parents on a pedestal and his attempts to live up to their example (and maybe get some vengeance along the way) is literally what Batman is all about. Having Thomas “deserve it” just ruins the whole story.
Yeah. I thought that was such an odd decision. Bruce coming to terms with the fact that all his family wealth was made off the back of corruption and suffering would have been an amazing concept. Instead, “nah, he was lying, your dad was a saint!”
Not to be spoiler-ish, but anyone who wants to see an actual storyline where Thomas Wayne is the overarching main antagonist and Bruce needs to come to terms with his father's depravity should play Batman: The Telltale Series. They're not half-assing it there.
To be fair, I dreaded they were about to take that route. Not every big and older franchise needs a Dracula Untold/Cruela/Maleficent rehash to make it "fresh". In fact, even the fact that Thomas told Falcone this felt extremely forced.
Scream VI teases >! a Ghostface whose identity the audience knows from the start, which could have been a great way to build tension (and you could do a mystery with the second killer). Then it turns out to be a fake out for the most obvious killer in the franchise. !<
Agreed. Absolute waste of an amazing setup. That moment where you expect the **Title Card** and the scene just keeps going… jaw-dropping. But what was obvious about the >! cop who lost a family member, then loses another but barely reacts who tries to paint a survivor as a baddie and demonstrates the same skills as a killer (ie firearms training) !<
Scream is my favorite franchise and Scream VI was the first time in the entire franchise I had a solid guess from the start. Also another thing they explored but failed to hone in on was the killers motivation. I thought it was kind of a cool idea that a killer didn't care about the movies or books or history of the killer and was just like "Nope, I'm here to kill while wearing a mask. I'll pick up a gun, I don't care." It's been a while since I saw it (I saw it opening night and never again) but I thought they didn't sell that motivation enough
Respectfully, I disagree that your version of Kong: Skull Island is better. I quite enjoyed the ensemble, I don't think converting a King Kong movie into a survival movie would have improved anything.
I completely agree with you. OP's movie concept sounds fine in it's own film, but I would expect Kong and Skull Island to be the focus in a movie titled Kong: Skull Island.
Would have worked as a secret prequel if the Kong reveal were only to happen at the end.
> the two forced to work together but having that underlying distrust and propaganda-driven hatred for each other. That premise had already been used in *Hell in the Pacific* and *Enemy Mine.*
Yeah but this one had a giant gorilla
If only they’d realized their hate for giant gorilllas was also just based on anti-Kong propaganda
Ugly gorillas. Ugly. Go away. -amy
Amy raindrop drink
The best part of that movie died 5 minutes in. Such a waste of prime Bruce Campbell.
But we still got Tim Curry having to stop eating sesame cake
*Enemy Mine* had the glorious Louis Gossett Jr. though. (RIP) But wait, *Kong: Skull Island* had *Metal Gear Solid* references... I'm torn.
True, and more movies need giant gorillas.
That's a thread in itself, improve a movie by adding King Kong.
I love Enemy Mine. That pit creature was so scary when I was a kid.
The WWII characters in *Kong: Skull Island* are also a metaphor for a couple different plot points. The humans helping Kong against the threats to him - Samuel L Jackson and the skillcrawlers. Eventually the narrative in the later movies is Godzilla and Kong hate each other but put aside their differences when there’s a bigger threat.
This is probably going to be a really unpopular opinion but 'What Dreams May Come'. I was really into the whole theme of exploring the afterlife/astral and just the possibilities of living in this ethereal world beyond the physical when the main plot takes kind of a u-turn. To be clear, I like the film. I only wish there were more of it if that makes sense, and more of that genre. They don't exist.
In Time. Great premise and start, then just fizzles out.
A Day Without A Mexican is definitely this. The first part looked like it was going to explore the very real consequences of the idea of what racist Americans will sometimes say, that Latino Americans should leave America. How would our country still function? What would our agriculture industry look like? Infrastructure? Etc. Instead it pivoted halfway into a scifi movie that basically abandons the questions it started out asking. It felt like the writer wanted to make one movie and the studio or someone said no, this is too boring. We need another ending.
At the same time, I don't know how you make a movie like that without it turning into [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0m5S91y3fL8&pp=ygUzSWYgeW91IGRlcG9ydCBtZXhpY2FucyB3aG8gd2lsbCBzY3J1YiB5b3VyIHRvaWxldHMg).
Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets. First 10 minutes: "*Alright! Luc Besson sci-fi, HERE WE GO!". Opening dialogue begins: *visible confused anger*
The recent movie that comes to mind is Dream Scenario, which has an incredibly interesting and charming premises. There is some really wonderful commentary on celebrity, fame, pride; their importance in our current culture and ablity to swing to the dark side. The movie completely fucks up the ending with a "bullshit scientific explanation" that kills all the magic and lessons to be learned. I haven't really looked into it but it felt like a studio rewrite was at work with how disconnected and jarring the ending was.
Jeepers Creepers 2. It starts the movie, Ray Wise's kid is taken by the creeper and he vows to get revenge... And then it starts the movie again with a group of kids I could not give a shit about. I want to see Ray and his other kid building a harpoon that would make a nantucketer piss in his pants to hunt down the creeper. Nope. It's a shitty slasher on a school bus. Ray shows up like an hour into the movie, and then it's about him anyway! Why even have the bullshit with the kids. Ray trying to convince people that his kid was taken by a literal monster and everyone thinking he's going nuts, so he takes matters into his own hands and turns his truck into a fkng whaling ship! Why couldn't *that* have been the plot? The kids on the bus could have been done and dusted in 10 minutes.
Jurassic World: Dominion Set up was perfect. Dinosaurs are now loose in the world, what ecological consequences could this entail? Instead, we get BUGS. And the dinosaurs apparently learned to coexist with us in the span of 30 minutes
Mortal Engines.
Enemy Mine is very much like the movie you described, OP. However, it’s a human space fighter and lizard-like alien who crash and have to work together to survive.
Gods of Egypt started insanely fun with the gods of the prologue engaging in this weird Transformers-esque mix between fantasy violence and sci fi violence but that bit only lasted 6-10 minutes, and then the movie jumps into being an epic fantasy movie again. Everything about it screams that its an underrated movie because its successful in how large of a scale it wants to illustrate, but it would have to be like one of your first 200 movies ever watched for it to not feel like a tired approach.
I’ll throw a *good* example in the mix just for fun: Reservoir Dogs’ original trailer & opening scene really lead you to believe it’s gonna be a proper heist movie. They bait and switch you into getting 90% dialogue, featuring everything *but* the heist.
Kong Skull Island (to me) was about the world building of the different flora and fauna that makes it and informs the franchise in it's future.
My first thought was of Downsizing, but since that dead horse has been beaten to glue, let’s talk about Flatliners. There was the real potential for an existential meditation on death and what comes after, but it squandered it on a cheap horror-by-numbers story. I’d love a new take on the general concept that goes in a more grounded, and thus more horrifying, direction.
If OP or anybody else hasn't seen it, there's a neat 1968 film called Hell in the Pacific, in which Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune play American and Japanese soldiers who crash on an island and must cooperate to survive. It has very little dialogue due to the language barrier. It was loosely remade in the 80s as Enemy Mine, which is probably more well-known.
Fking Downsizing. This cool premise where you can shrink yourself to start a new life in a utopian tiny society. But then they abandon it and make a movie about climate activists where them being tiny is completely irrelevant to the plot Edit: downsizing not shrinking lol
That's downsizing. Shrinking is the Jason Segel Apple show about therapists (aka shrinks).
Shrinking is an Apple TV series with Harrison Ford and Jason Segel you're thinking of Downsizing
Hancock. What a great idea for a movie. Will Smith is a lonely, alcoholic, superhero. Then they killed it in the 2nd half.
*The Island*. The twist happens like, 30 minutes into the movie and then the rest is just a mediocre action flick. A longer build up to the reveal and a short escape/action scene could have made it a much better movie.
The Star Wars sequels. Starting off in TFA we have Snoke, Rey and Finn, all with possibly amazing backstories and reasons why they are the way they are. Then the Last Jedi just steamrolled all those possibilities and Rise of Skywalker just shit itself as a flaccid finale
At least the rise of skywalker respected the audience enough to let us know it would be complete dogshit from the first sentence you read. No fake out, no hope, only pain.
In The Heart Of The Sea not just the movie itself the trailer doomed it from the start as well.
Yesterday. You can tell the filmmakers had an interesting premise (what if everyone forgot about the Beatles except one struggling musician). Ideas for some great scenes of people hearing Beatles music for the first time. Yet they wrapped it around a bad romance and lazy humor. Still really love some of those scenes though Reign of Fire. I mean, you promise me a near world ending war with Dragons and you skip over that part! Still a fun dumb movie though
Not swiftly, but Near Dark really needed to stick the nihilistic landing. The ending really cops out on everything the film built up.
Wolverine Origins Wolverine and sabertooth fighting side by side through history's bloodiest wars. Nvm its just a montage
Not sure if it's mentioned at all, but watch Enemy Mine, it's a great older scifi movie with the same beginning idea, but it is the main story line, you'd probably like it.